A Sweater For Two
by The Royal Zookeeper
Summary: During a cold winter day, the heating goes out in the Mystery Room, and Lucy and Alfendi are in a lull in their investigations. The latter comes up with a solution for the chill. /shamelessly fluffy oneshot. Can be Lucifendi or just a couple of friends being adorable. Any comments on its improvement are welcome, but not required./


Lucy was cold.

No, scratch that, she was freezing.

The detective-constable took a glance out of the window, and immediately wished she hadn't. It looked as cold out there as she felt. A frigid sort of stillness about everything, like the very air had frozen. The snow looked like it would produce a nasty, gritty crunch if stepped on, and intricate frost etched it's way around the edges of the pane.

"Prof..." she said, "Are ye sure there's nowt we can do?" There was a great flapping of paper in the corner of the room.

The inspector, 'Prof' Alfendi Layton, was swiveling idly in his desk chair, reading a newspaper. "Hm?" he replied. "Oh... No, I'm pretty sure there isn't... Ninety-eight-point-seven percent sure, actually."

"Wot about the leftover one-point-three percent?"

"That's just to be on the safe side." Said Alfendi, looking over the top of the pages. "Neither of us have the technical skill to fix the main heater, which is currently in the process of being repaired, the lab can't spare any of the space heaters, and the reconstruction machine is still rendering. The only thing we CAN do is wait until any one of those is resolved."

"Oh, I S'pose you're right..." Sighed Lucy. She wrapped her arms around herself and bounced on her toes, before taking up a process of shuffling across the room in a gridlike fashion, trying to find the warmest spot in it. "Eck, I wish I'd brought a better coat than this..." She said.

Alfendi continued the slow spinning in the chair, reaching his hand out so it ran into the handle of his coffee cup. He took a sip, and then put it back. It HAD been hot coffee. Last time he had sipped from it it had been warm coffee. On this occasion, however, he could say with one-hundred percent certainty that it qualified as iced coffee.

"When will the reconstructor finish rendering?" asked Lucy. "And can we make it render a cozy fire? Surely that won't get in the way of the crime scene..."

Alfendi was about to point out that such an idea would very directly interfere, as the case they were about to take on was the mystery of a man locked in a walk-in freezer, but then thought better of it. He flipped through the last several pages of the paper, before beginning to methodically fold it back up. Slowly, neatly, and creasing the edges as he went along.

Lucy had found the cup of coffee. He stuck her hand hopefully over it, but found it provided no warmth. She took a sip, hoping the intuition of her hand had been wrong, and felt the worse for it.

The paper now being in a perfectly folded square, Alfendi took both hands and rolled it up, tapping the ends so it all lined up in a perfect sort of scroll, and then rammed it unceremoniously into his pocket with several others. He tugged the white coat a little more closely around his body. He was, in truth, rather chilled himself now. Lucy stopped just behind his chair and simply stood there, somehow sensing some fractional difference in the temperature caused by the Prof. Alfendi turned around within the chair and looked up at her. "What are you doing?" He asked.

"Oh, nothing really. Just standing."

"Why are you standing HERE?"

His partner merely shrugged.

Alfendi sighed, and then spun the chair around so as to face her. Lucy was surprised when she felt something narrow and angular hook around her waist, and draw her into falling backwards into the chair.

"Prof?" She asked, a bit baffled at finding herself on his lap.

"Hold still." He replied, as Lucy's vision went dark. The detective-constable panicked again, if only for a moment, when the thick fabric was pulled over her head. This was the end... She had caught the wrong side of the Prof the wrong way and now she was going to suffocate for it... She however, didn't get the chance to yell or struggle before her head popped, confused, back into the air and daylight.

Something heavy rested on top of her hat, while once again a pair of long, bony arms held her in place. Still a bit disoriented, she let her gaze drift downwards. She was inside of some stretched material pattered with alternating red and blue stripes. Realizing, she felt her cheeks tint and fidgeted slightly.

"I said hold still." Said Alfendi, holding onto her tighter and readjusting the position of his chin atop her head.

"Prof...?" Started Lucy.

"Hm?"

She felt as though she had had good, reasonable protests or arguments against sharing the sweater, but they all fell away with one realization. It was WARM in there.

"Were you going to say something?"

She said nothing, just burrowed deeper into the fabric and body heat.

"I do need to breathe, though."

"Sorry Prof..."

There was a soft click, and the sound of air moving.

"Is that the heat back on?" Asked Lucy.

"I think it is." Said Alfendi. Neither one moved.

A small device pinged on the desk. "That will be the reconstruction device finished..." Noted Alfendi.

"Aye." Both stared off into infinity, looking like some sort of striped kangaroo with its Joey.

"We ought to go start our investigation, eh?" said Lucy.

"You should know..." Started Alfendi "They did find the body in a freezer..."

"Eh!" exclaimed Lucy. "Well, I suppose it can't hurt anything if we give it a minute, will it?"

"I'd say not."

They remained for a minute longer.

"Starting to get a bit warm now..." said Lucy.

"You're right about that." The inspector released his partner from the sweater. They both stood up, and straightened themselves out. "You ready to solve a murder?"

"Am I ever!"


End file.
